Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Mayoral xmas: dead turkey or lame duck

What the NZ Herald have launched looks more like an indictment than just a campaign. I was saying old slappy should go on day zero of this tortuous saga - it would have spared his family a lot of shit. Glad to see the Herald has caught up with what was already apparent from the beginning when Slater spilt.

Some of the gruesome highlights from today:

A vote of no-confidence in Auckland Mayor Len Brown will be attempted tomorrow by five of the city's councillors.
[...]
The five councillors will propose the motion: That the Governing Body notes that Len Brown lacks the essential leadership credentials of judgement, honesty, integrity, and credibility and as a result councillors have lost confidence in his ability to carry out his duties as Mayor of Auckland.
The five councillors - Mr Quax, Linda Cooper, Cameron Brewer, Sharon Stewart, Denise Krum - have advised other councillors of their intentions and are confident more will come on board over the next 24 hours to support this stronger statement, Mr Quax said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse said councillors met during the lunch break to finalise the wording of a set of actions against Mr Brown at tomorrow's public meeting of the full council.
[...]
Earlier today TVNZ reported that Mayor Brown had been chased down the street by about 12 protesters, calling for his resignation.
"It's not okay to root in the mayoral office,'' "Where's your dignity?" and "Shame shame shame,'' the group chanted.
As the mayor was driven away the protesters ran after his car.
[...]
Today the New Zealand Herald took the rare step of running our editorial on the front page.
In it, we called for Auckland Mayor Len Brown to stand down, after it was revealed he failed to declare free hotel rooms and upgrades.
"Tomorrow, Auckland councillors will not only formally censure Mr Brown but begin a process designed to clip the wings of the mayoral office. If that happens, the Super City may no longer have a leader with the independent authority to drive things forward. The only means of avoiding that outcome is for Mr Brown to resign. He must go in the interests of Auckland and Aucklanders."

How long can this clown Brown keep laughing everything off as he keeps doing in his chummy interviews with his mate John Campbell on TV3? How long can the sad dog act persist? He has to wear that all day instead of getting on with business because this is an unresolvable distraction whilst he remains in office. His French bedroom farce antics all over Auckland with Mistress and Wife in and out of hotels and helping the mistress get a job in the city apparatus is incompatible with being a good Mayor. When media ask 'What the hell were you doing at meetings in Hong Kong paid for by their government that you won't tell us about?' this can't be met by Len with a chuckle and some bullshit about moving on. There is no credibility. There was none to begin with.

When Brown uses soft money ad campaigns via charities (as he did in 2010 with an anti-pokies line) and takes a line against gambling and then when he's in office he's taking money off Sky City and getting comp'ed at the Casino hotel what are the electors to make of this? There are many other such questions of integrity, political, moral or otherwise. Backing the port management against the union another notable incompatibility with the people who voted for him and what they were expecting. Len has lot a lot more people down than his wife and family and the sooner he realises this the better.

Either he goes or - to mix metaphors - he is the lamest duck waiting for the longest Christmas.